John Wayne Gacy's blood could solve old murders

FILE - This 1978 file photo shows serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Three vials of Gacy's blood were recently discovered by Cook County Sheriff's detective Jason Moran. The sheriff’s office is creating DNA profiles from the blood of Gacy and other executed killers and putting them in a national DNA database of profiles created from blood, semen, or strands of hair found at crime scenes and on the bodies of victims. What they hope to find is evidence that links the long-dead killers to the coldest of cold cases and prompt authorities in other states to submit the DNA of their own executed inmates and maybe evidence from decades-old crime scenes to help them solve their own cases. (AP Photo)
— AP

FILE - This 1978 file photo shows serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Three vials of Gacy's blood were recently discovered by Cook County Sheriff's detective Jason Moran. The sheriff’s office is creating DNA profiles from the blood of Gacy and other executed killers and putting them in a national DNA database of profiles created from blood, semen, or strands of hair found at crime scenes and on the bodies of victims. What they hope to find is evidence that links the long-dead killers to the coldest of cold cases and prompt authorities in other states to submit the DNA of their own executed inmates and maybe evidence from decades-old crime scenes to help them solve their own cases. (AP Photo)
/ AP

In this photo taken Friday, Nov. 30, 2012, in Chicago, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, left, and sheriff's detective Jason Moran are photographed with three recently discovered vials of mass murderer John Wayne Gacy's blood. The sheriff’s office is creating DNA profiles from the blood of Gacy and other executed killers and putting them in a national DNA database of profiles created from blood, semen, or strands of hair found at crime scenes and on the bodies of victims. What they hope to find is evidence that links the long-dead killers to the coldest of cold cases and prompt authorities in other states to submit the DNA of their own executed inmates and maybe evidence from decades-old crime scenes to help them solve their own cases. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)— AP

In this photo taken Friday, Nov. 30, 2012, in Chicago, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, left, and sheriff's detective Jason Moran are photographed with three recently discovered vials of mass murderer John Wayne Gacy's blood. The sheriff’s office is creating DNA profiles from the blood of Gacy and other executed killers and putting them in a national DNA database of profiles created from blood, semen, or strands of hair found at crime scenes and on the bodies of victims. What they hope to find is evidence that links the long-dead killers to the coldest of cold cases and prompt authorities in other states to submit the DNA of their own executed inmates and maybe evidence from decades-old crime scenes to help them solve their own cases. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
/ AP

This photo taken Friday, Nov. 30, 2012, in Chicago shows three vials of mass murderer John Wayne Gacy's blood recently discovered by Cook County Sheriff's detective Jason Moran. The sheriff’s office is creating DNA profiles from the blood of Gacy and other executed killers and putting them in a national DNA database of profiles created from blood, semen, or strands of hair found at crime scenes and on the bodies of victims. What they hope to find is evidence that links the long-dead killers to the coldest of cold cases and prompt authorities in other states to submit the DNA of their own executed inmates and maybe evidence from decades-old crime scenes to help them solve their own cases. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)— AP

This photo taken Friday, Nov. 30, 2012, in Chicago shows three vials of mass murderer John Wayne Gacy's blood recently discovered by Cook County Sheriff's detective Jason Moran. The sheriff’s office is creating DNA profiles from the blood of Gacy and other executed killers and putting them in a national DNA database of profiles created from blood, semen, or strands of hair found at crime scenes and on the bodies of victims. What they hope to find is evidence that links the long-dead killers to the coldest of cold cases and prompt authorities in other states to submit the DNA of their own executed inmates and maybe evidence from decades-old crime scenes to help them solve their own cases. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
/ AP

CHICAGO 
Detectives have long wondered what secrets serial killer John Wayne Gacy and other condemned murderers took to the grave when they were executed - particularly whether they had other unknown victims.

Now, in a game of scientific catch-up, the Cook County Sheriff's Department is trying to find out by entering the killers' DNA profiles into a national database shared with other law-enforcement agencies. The move is based on an ironic legal distinction: The men were technically listed as homicide victims themselves because they were put to death by the state.

Authorities hope to find DNA matches from blood, semen, hair or skin under victims' fingernails that link the long-dead killers to the coldest of cold cases. And they want investigators in other states to follow suit and submit the DNA of their own executed inmates or from decades-old crime scenes.

"You just know some of these guys did other murders," said Jason Moran, the sheriff's detective leading the effort. He noted that some of the executed killers ranged all over the country before the convictions that put them behind bars for the last time.

The Illinois testing, which began in the summer, is the latest attempt by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart to solve the many mysteries still surrounding one of the nation's most notorious serial killers. Dart's office recently attempted to identify the last unnamed Gacy victims by exhuming their remains to create modern DNA profiles that could be compared with the DNA of people whose loved ones went missing in the 1970s, when Gacy was killing young men.

That effort, which led to the identification of one additional Gacy victim, led Dart to wonder if the same technology could help answer a question that has been out there for decades: Did Gacy kill anyone besides those young men whose bodies were stashed under his house or tossed in a river?

"He traveled a lot," Moran said. "Even though we don't have any information he committed crimes elsewhere, the sheriff asked if you could put it past such an evil person."

Dart's office said Monday that it believes this is the first time DNA has been added to the national database for criminals executed before the database was created.

"This has the potential to help bring closure to victims' families who have gone so long without knowing what happened to their loved ones," Dart said in a news release.

Receiving permission to use the database posed several challenges for Dart's detectives.

After unexpectedly finding three vials of Gacy's blood stored with other Gacy evidence, Moran learned the state would only accept the blood in the crime database if it came from a coroner or medical examiner.

Moran thought he was out of luck. But then the coroner in Will County, outside Chicago, surprised him with this revelation: In his office freezer were blood samples from Gacy and at least three other executed inmates, all of whom had been put to death there in the period after Illinois reinstated the death penalty in the 1970s. The executions were carried out between 1990 and 1999, a year before then-Gov. George Ryan established a moratorium on the death penalty.